MIDDLE EAST: The Palestinian death toll in a large-scale Israeli raid deep in the Gaza Strip rose to at least 28 yesterday. Troops and tanks thrust into the teeming Jabalya refugee camp, known for its militancy, for the first time since the start of the intifada uprising, in an attempt to stem the firing of makeshift rockets into Israel.
Last night, the Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, approved a large-scale offensive in the Strip from where he hopes to withdraw by next year.
Three Israelis - two soldiers and the resident of a settlement in the northern part of the Strip - were also killed yesterday, as the Israeli raid entered its second day. The operation was stepped up on Wednesday after a rocket fired from Gaza by militants killed two young children in the southern Israeli town of Sderot.
Defence Minister Mr Shaul Mofaz spoke yesterday of a "large-scale and prolonged" operation in northern Gaza in an effort to push the militants firing Qassam rockets, as the militant Hamas organisation has named them, out of range of Sderot. Mr Sharon, who was meeting with his security cabinet last night, was expected to order more forces into the Strip for a longer period than in the past, and to approve forays into areas such as Jabalya, which the military has preferred to circumvent until now.
In the deadliest incident yesterday, an Israeli tank shell fired near a school in Jabalya killed seven people and injured 23, many of them critically. The Israeli army said that the shell had been fired at a group of armed men who were planting a bomb. It was not immediately clear how many of the dead and wounded were civilians, although a doctor at a local hospital in the camp said at least four on the critical list were under the age of 14.
At the hospital, where the floors were covered in blood, Dr Mahmoud Asali told the Associated Press that some of the injured "have lost their eyes. Others have lost limbs, and the martyrs are completely disfigured."
Over 130 Palestinians were injured yesterday in one of the deadliest days of fighting since the intifada erupted four years ago.
Until now, Israeli troops have preferred not to enter Jabalya, which is the largest camp in the Strip and a militant hotbed where the first intifada erupted 17 years ago. But yesterday, military bulldozers demolished 22 homes along a narrow road leading into the camp, in what appeared to be an attempt to clear the way for tanks and armoured vehicles. Many of the Qassam rockets that land in Israel have been fired from the camp and its environs.
Gunmen, some carrying grenade launchers, others coils of electrical wiring for planting booby-traps, lined the main entry points to the camp with bombs. Masked men vowed that Israeli soldiers who entered the camp would not leave. "Death awaits the Zionists in Jabalya," said one.
The Palestinian Authority called for international intervention to end the Israeli operation. A close aide to Palestinian leader Mr Yasser Arafat said that the Palestinians were calling on "the UN Security Council, the Quartet, and the United States to get involved immediately to put an end to the massacres Israel is committing in Gaza."
An Israeli woman was shot dead by Palestinian gunmen in northern Gaza yesterday as she jogged along a road near the settlement where she lived. An Israeli soldier was shot dead in the ensuing firefight after troops rushed to the scene. Both Palestinian gunmen were shot dead by soldiers.
Earlier, an Israeli soldier was killed after two Palestinian gunmen, operating under the cover of thick early-morning fog, attacked an army outpost near the town of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza. Both gunmen were shot dead.
Despite numerous raids into northern Gaza, the Israeli military has yet to find an answer to the rudimentary Qassam rockets, which have so far claimed the lives of four people in Sderot and have spread panic there.
Several hundred residents marched through the streets of the small working class town last night in protest at what they considered the government's ineffectiveness, and they were expected to head for Mr Sharon's private ranch, situated not far from Sderot.